album ii - second critique - car speakers

nOe-ii
car speakers

015 -drums too loud (esp. bass), robot okay

012 -drums too loud

014 -ok

hangman -awful! muddy, guitar way too quiet, drums too loud

OS002 -guitar too quiet, muddy

SL010 -chh too loud

album ii - first critique - over-the-ear mixing headphones

ii


nOe-ii
over-ear headphones

015
high synth a little sloppy - like the 1/8th note chord part

012
ok

014
loud!
short outro

SL004-hangman
noise-clicks :(
guitar a little too quiet
really long outro

OS002
guitar a little too quiet
missing bass?

SL010

SL011
too long and just a bit weak

SL007
drags on a little long for main theme at 2min
fade out guitar part then fade back in?

016
omit chh

robot drums and nursery rhymes?

This groove has been the funnerest I have put together yet for the rpm2011 challenge. I had the goal to build a robot drum library as well as use some more kids-toys samples. nOe-015 has these built into a techno groove. Feedback welcome!

nOe-015

RPM Challenge 2011 - nOe-SL-011

I have been having some software woes lately that have blocked my creative juices, I got pumped when I found out qjackctl patchbay would save all my jack connections, except not totally since it cannot differentiate between my two E-MU XMidi1X1 USB connectors. And Yoshimi let me down in a big way when it kept crashing if I tried to used more than one channel or otherwise load a preset .xmz file. So I finally gave up and switched back to ZynAddSubFx for my live looping since I like having 5 different softsynths loaded in channels 5-9. With looping it's all about flexibility and options on the fly! I mean, you need that. Yeah?

Anyway, after pouting a bit, I managed to put together a new piece:

SL-011

It's nearly 01:00 so I think it's time to throw in the towel.

Open Soarz

I have been using open-source software for music creation for about a year and a half now.  Actually, I have mostly been learning the ropes until recently and now I have a chosen set of tools with which I plan to compose record and edit audio art.  The ability to have freedom and flexiblity is important to an artist, and I am truly becoming passionate about open-source software as it has given me an opportunity to create, a journey of the mind and spirit.  I am hopeful that I can return the fruits of their labour from the fruits of mine.  I don't really like the idea of selling my music, however, should I have the opportunity to collect donations from live shows, I plan on giving at least 50% to the open-source projects that have helped me create.

I also decided that "Open Soarz" would be a good "industrial/metal" band name that used only open-source solutions to making music.  My first couple attempts at some edgy-er material for Open Soarz (OS) is below.  I realised quickly that I will need to keep practising.

OS-002

hangman

Live Looping

About 2 years ago now I happened across a webisode of KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" featuring Theresa Andersson who blew me away with all the music she made "flying solo." She explained on the show that she uses a combination of "loop pedals" to accomplish her complex artistic expression. I started thinking about how I might be able to do something similar and as mentioned in an earlier post, I bought and tested a Boss Loop Station which I ultimately traded in for a more flexible solution to meet my needs: combining a Behringer FCB1010 with Jesse Campbell's SooperLooper software.

I have now been working with this set-up for a few months and I am really starting to put together all the puzzle pieces. I have learned (partially) how to program the FCB1010 so that I am currently able to use the one pedal to MIDI-control SooperLooper, Rakarrack (a nice digital effects pedal), and Hydrogen drum machine. I also have a small, old, simple but excellent (it was a free gift) MIDI keyboard that I connect to ZynAddSubFX and Qsynth routing different sounds on 7 channels (for now). Additionally I run my Les Paul and a 3/4 size bass I got as a gift (thanks Sadie) through separate channels (L and R) into an ART USB DualPre which is my "off-board" sound-card / preamp.

It took me a long time to figure out how all these different softwares work together, alone, with MIDI, etc. but now I'm getting results (clips below). SooperLooper is great and I really like how it syncs with Hydrogen and quantizes to my drum-loop. I only wish Hydrogen had some more MIDI bindings (like switching patterns which I cannot get to work) and that there was a linux equivalent for midistroke (Mac).

edit: I discovered a "secret feature" in Hydrogen. It seems that it will allow for selection/deselction of the patterns (1 - n from top to bottom) using MIDI program-change (PC) commands 01 - n. I programmed my FCB1010 to send PC-01 - PC-04 at bank 08 where I control the muting of Hydrogen and Sooperlooper, only it sends on a separated channel so that PC-01 - 04 are still free for Rakarrack to use.

SL-010

SL-007

RPM 2011

RPM 2011 is underway and I have gotten a slight head start in hopes that I can make a more professional looking product this year than a CD-R with Sharpie labeling. My focus this year is to use completely open-source software and my strategy for a workflow is to spend an hour or so 3 nights a week to "get my groove on" using my live looping set-up and then dump the loops to my DAW (Ardour2) and paint my picture there. I have found this has been a very efficient workflow for me given my often debilitating time constraints.

You may take notice of two new tracks to the left where I have used this strategy: SL-007 and hangman01. Tonight Elia helped me with SL-007 by accompanying me on synths. The process took about 30ish minutes to grab a few loops and then about an hour to arrange, add automation and mix to generate the recording. hangman01 has some computer artifact blips that I don't like so I will have to remix at some point.